This was my favorite line, though it’s not the one that first caught my attention.

My partner RJ has been making his way (rather alarmingly quickly, I might add) through the Dr. Who series. He’s up to season 5, I think, and called me into the living room because the next episode was set in Venice. “Wanna watch it with me?” he asked.

I had to do my hair that night (not kidding!), but watched a few minutes, enough to see the clever ways they combined exterior shots of courtyards with CG canals and gondolas blended in. Oh, and vampires. Dr. Who was bringing his friends to Venice as a wedding present and got sucked into a vampire ring run by aliens (or something like that. I didn’t watch the whole episode). (Here’s a wiki summarizing the episode: http://tardis.wikia.com/wiki/Casanova).

The Doctor and friends were there in the fifteenth century, and he commented that it would be a couple hundred years before Casanova would be in Venice, which was a good thing, considering that the Doctor owed Casanova a chicken.

Huh?

Of course I had to do a little digging after that. RJ found a fan fiction page for me that recreates the scene where Dr. Who mentions Casanova. That’s where I found the line at the top of this blog, plus this one:

“The Doctor owes the charming Casanova a chicken.”

Here’s the whole fan fiction piece if you want to read it. (It’s more relevant for Dr. Who fans than Casanova fans, but anyway):

In case you don’t read it, here’s a summary: Apparently Dr. Who and his friend Jack were stuck in Venice, where they met Casanova and some “womanizing aliens.” They made a bet with him “about something you’d probably rather not know,” and the Doctor lost the bet. He was supposed to give Casanova a chicken, but since he didn’t have a chicken, he knocked C unconscious instead and ran off.

(By the way, there are many many webpages out there about this episode if you want to read on.)

So here’s my challenge to you, dear readers:

In 100 words or less, tell us the story of what the bet was about and what happened next, after Casanova woke up. You might guess that I’m most interested in what Casanova did rather than what Dr. Who did (no offense to Dr. Who fans, but I’m more of a Casanova fan). Send in your stories, and the person with the most entertaining one will get a prize! I’ll send you a copy of one of my books of your choice; (see here: http://www.kathleenanngonzalez.com) or a copy of Venice Is a Fish, or a t-shirt from a great Venice bar, Il Santo Bevitore (size medium).